Pies of the Damned
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: It was hard to say at exactly what point the new case became an issue, but Chuck was willing to bet it was when someone mentioned necrophilia and Ned’s eye began to twitch. Now they've got a vampire on the loose. Nothing can stop secrets from emerging.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This was almost completely unintentional. **

**Part One**

It was difficult to say at exactly what point the new case became an issue, but Chuck was willing to bet it was when someone mentioned necrophilia and Ned's eye began to twitch. Twitch, twitch, twitch, it went, with every indication that it meant to continue in the same vein. She pulled her attention from Emerson, who was busy expounding the details of the case at great and unnecessary length, and stared hard in consternation at the tic-laden Pie Maker.

"— at that point, I just reached out and turned it off," said Emerson, by no means concluding, but allowing a short commercial break for the listeners at home to rush for the beverages or, having done so previously, the restrooms. He folded his hands complacently in front of him; this being a sign that he was ready to take their questions, by rights Ned and Chuck should have leapt into the conversational fray. But the Pie Maker was too busy twitching, and Chuck directed her question to him.

"Are you alright?" She would have reached out to touch his arm, but she knew better than that, and the action was not so much stillborn as not even conceived. In her head, however, the lonely tourist embraced the Pie Maker fully, lending him support and reminders of her presence; in reality, sadly, she was forced to convey the weight of her concern with her voice and the worried twisting of her fingers.

"I'm fine!" said Ned explosively, then recovered, put a blank look on his face, and said, "Huh?" He shoved his hands in his pockets. Chuck looking at him like that made him want to embrace her fully, lending her support and reminders of his presence; in reality, unfortunately, this was never to be an option, and so he kept his hands in his pockets for fear they should, in a moment of abstraction, wander where they should not wander.

He could tell by the quirk of her eyebrows that he had not fooled her; but he had not really expected to.

"You're twitching," she pointed out.

He clapped a hand over his eye. "No I'm not," he said from behind it.

"Well, not now, you're not, no," she said, grinning a little, "but you were. And you don't twitch for no reason. I realize that's not the proper grammar—"

"Mm-hmm," rumbled Emerson, who was growing irritable at the tenor of the conversation.

"—but clearly there's something wrong and before your facial muscles spasm once too often and you get permanently stuck with a squint I think we should address it and fix it, if at all possible," finished Chuck in a rush.

"You know what I think?" said Emerson. "I think we ought to focus on the real issue here. Strange as this might seem, we've got a case. People expect us to solve it. People are waitin' on us. People are relyin' on us. And his twitchy eye and your grammar problems are gettin' in the way."

Ned faced him, hand still over half his face. "Do you realize that you drop your g's and talk to us like we're imbeciles when you're trying to drive home a point? I don't know what purpose that serves, if you're just trying to be impressive or if you really do think we're imbeciles—"

Emerson harrumphed and gave him a look that meant this was a line of thought he'd better not pursue to its logical conclusion.

"Don't try to change the subject," said Chuck. She folded her arms. "Something about this is really bothering you, and we should figure it out. I want to help." She gave him her best earnest look. "So let me."

The Pie Maker dropped his hand and returned it back to his pocket. "This lady thinks her boyfriend was a vampire, Chuck. A vampire. Someone's got issues here, and it might as well be me."

Chuck dropped her arms and swung them about as she talked. "A vampire, Ned, a bat in a human suit. Don't you find that the least bit intriguing?"

"Yes," said Ned. "I also find it frightening, disturbing, and a miscarriage of imagination." He turned to Emerson, beseechingly. "Is it really necessary that we take this case? I mean, isn't this one for the police to investigate?"

"My instincts are telling me, _no_," said Emerson delicately. "But the money in my pocket is telling me _yes, yes, yes_."

"She _paid_ you already? You took_ money_ for us to figure out if her murdered vampire boyfriend is really murdered and a vampire? That's—" The distraught Pie Maker flailed. "— dishonest!"

"I think it's romantic," said Chuck, serenely. "I'm not talking about the money thing, I'm talking about the whole undead love situation. The idea that love goes on after you've died makes a lot of sense, I mean, love is a powerful emotion."

Ned had to walk away for a little bit. "I'm not disagreeing with that," he said once his back was turned. His shoulders hunched protectively, nearly up to his ears, though what or whom he was protecting was not immediately discernible. "There's no doubt that when love is pure—"

Emerson wished devoutly that he had not left his knitting needles in the car. "Why I always gotta be here for these conversations? You people are swimming in a vast ocean of angst, and callin' it a puddle of happiness. Even a dead vampire reminds you of yourselves."

"—but this love isn't pure," said Ned. "As far as I can tell."

"That's just it," said Chuck. "You can't."

He turned back towards her. "Necrophilia?"

She shrugged expansively. "We weren't there. Who are we to judge? She thought he was alive anyway."

"It was not," said Emerson, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as he spoke, "actually necrophilia. The lady went to visit her boyfriend, whom she thought was a vampire, during the daytime. She thought he would be asleep. She was right. There was no heartbeat but then, hey, he's a vampire. She sits around till nightfall, and he don't wake up. Then, it's a problem. Lies about the undead only go so far."

Ned took a deep breath, and forcefully unhunched, loosing his hands from his pockets.

"So where is this so-called vampire?"

"I thought you'd never ask," said Emerson.

* * *

The so-called vampire was at present resting peacefully, if rather coldly, in the morgue. At the familiar sight of the trio coming through the door, the Coroner leaned back in his chair and drummed all five fingertips on the desk. Rent was about to come due. Tonight, he could take his momma a pie.

Emerson folded his fingers and looked as pious as he knew how. "Heard you got a live one."

"That supposed to be a joke?" It was clear from the Coroner's tone of voice and expression that, if so, it had failed miserably. Emerson unfolded his fingers and dropped his hands by his sides. Against his will, his facial muscles spasmed irritably.

"Now you're twitching," hissed Chuck. Ned leaned forward and looked sideways to check.

"Why would Emerson be twitching? There's no need to twitch."

"Maybe he twitches for no real reason. Like you." Chuck dropped the sentence airily and let it fall where it may, like conversational divining bones. Only she knew what it really meant.

"Emerson's not a reasonless twitcher." The Pie Maker was himself unreasonably distressed. A sudden change in the twitching habits of his friend the private investigator was not to be dismissed lightly. He himself knew that there was always a reason for his own tics, and had a deadly suspicion as to the reason for Emerson's. Something, he knew instinctively, was afoot.

Something was afoot, for Emerson Cod. Over the few years he had known the Pie Maker, and especially since the timely resurrection of the girl called Chuck, he had picked up and enjoyed a series of hobbies. Now proficient at knitting and pop-up-book-making, he had turned to a new pursuit: the art of stand up. The previous night had been his big debut at a pub on the other side of town, and the echoing silence of jokes stillborn and unfruitful was still with him even now. In his mind's eye he seemed to see the jeering crowd, all with the face and voice of the unimpressed Coroner, and he blushed hotly and twitched even harder.

"Now you're blushing!" hissed Chuck.

"What?" Ned was, by this point, quite alarmed. "Blushing? Why are you blushing? Why is he blushing?"

Emerson, trying to regain a measure of his composure, raised both hands and laid one each across the mouths of his companions. "Never mind them, they're being' talky. Lead us to the batman in the other room."

The Coroner eyed him with a steely gaze. "Mmm-hmmm," was all he would consent to say, till Emerson handed him the usual wad of bribery; which was also a bribe of freedom. Freedom for Emerson and his business associates to investigate the death of a certain vampire. Freedom for the Coroner to leave early in search of a celebratory dessert.

He flicked on the light switch for them. "Lock up when you're done. I've got business elsewhere."

The door closed behind them, and Ned said, "I just don't understand why you were twitching."

"And blushing," added Chuck, turning to face Emerson and scrutinizing him closely. "That's such an odd thing for you to do. I mean, since when do you get embarrassed about things?"

Emerson wished he had left his hands over their mouths. He wished, in fact, that he had brought duct tape, which, apart from its other million and one uses, is convenient for enforced quietude. He wished more than anything that they would shut up and get on with it, so he could go home.

"Will you two shut up and get on with it so we can go home," he said. Ned reflexively shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders.

"I just don't like things sprung on me," he muttered unhappily. "And anytime you get out of your zone and start doing things like twitching and— _blushing_, I get this sinking feeling."

"Well, bob right back up to the surface," said Emerson delicately, "and touch the dude."

Chuck pointed an accusatory finger at the Pie Maker. "Twitching! You're twitching again!"

"It was just the phrasing," said the Pie Maker lamentably. "It struck me as unfortunate." He loomed over the sheet-covered body of the erstwhile vampire, and sighed, shaking out his hand in preparation. Chuck pulled the sheet down for him.

The professed vampire was approaching middle age more rapidly than he cared to admit— at least, he had been before he went to his eternal sleep. His name was Edmund Hillary, and he had spent his entire lifetime explaining to people that, in fact, he had never gone near Mount Everest and was terrified of heights. His girlfriend, Esmerelda Hannity, had stayed goth a good ten years later than she should have, and when at thirty-five she was given the chance to date an actual vampire, had tripped over her thigh-high black leather platform lace-ups saying yes. The chance synchronicity of their initials had been to both of them a sign of the inevitability of their union, and love had blossomed among the cobwebs and coffins of Edmund's basement suite.

Now, as the Pie Maker stood poised over the body, he noted the blackened fingernails of the hands, the dark circles under the eyes, and he tipped his head curiously.

"Did somebody beat this guy up before he died?"

"It's makeup," said Chuck knowledgeably. "He was dressing the part."

"Overcompensating for his lack of vampireness, if you ask me."

"Why don't you ask _him_," suggested Emerson. "Or would that be too difficult for you in your obviously over-emotional state?" Ned looked at him. Their eyes twitched in sympathy: Ned was, indeed, over-emotional on account of taking this case personally, and Emerson had been, once again, trying for a joke and failing miserably.

"Okay," said Ned, sighed, and started the watch for Edmund's final minute.

The dead man woke with a start and eyed the strange faces above him with a critical gaze. "Where am I? Who are you? What happened?"

"If nothing else," muttered Emerson, "he's an original thinker. We're askin' the questions here, Dracula."

"Hi," said Chuck, giving Edmund a little wave. "We have a few questions to ask you, and not much time to do it in. We want to find out if you were killed, and find your killer, and bring him to justice."

Edmund eyed her, squinting. "Are you like avenging angels, or something?"

Chuck shrugged slightly. "More like an avenging committee. We work in tandem. And we're not very angelic."

"Forty seconds," said Ned. He glanced up from his watch. The vampire was staring at him.

"Forty seconds till what?"

"Till you— have to be dead again."

Edmund laughed. Ned twitched. Being laughed at was not something he was used to. Emerson, behind him and unseen, also twitched. Being laughed at was, equally, not something he was used to.

"Death's not a problem. I've been telling people I'm dead for years. Hasn't stopped me so far."

"I beg to differ," said the Pie Maker, making futile gestures to the morgue around them.

"But that's ridiculous, if you don't mind me saying," Chuck broke in. "I mean, being dead's not like being Catholic. You don't just get to say it's what you are and then do nothing about it."

"Twenty seconds," said Ned. "Look, were you killed by somebody? Do you know who did it?"

Edmund heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Last thing I remember I'd turned on my day-dark and was drifting off to sleep."

"Day-dark?" queried Emerson.

"Yeah, it's a special dark lantern for vampires." Edmund waved a dismissive hand. "I'm not saying I have a fear of the light, but I have to admit it does lend a certain restfulness to my rest. It plugs in right by my coffin. Also helps if I have to get up during the day to use the bathroom."

"Five seconds," said Ned.

"Can you quit with the counting? It makes me feel anxious. Hey." He stared in consternation at Ned, who stared in consternation in equal or greater amounts back at him. "Why'd you poke me?"

"— um," said Ned.

"That was really rude. You don't just go around poking people, you know? What, you never heard of invasion of personal space?"

"Um," said Ned again, "well, usually when I— poke people for the second time, they're not still around to complain—" He shook out his finger, and prodded Edmund's cheek. Edmund knocked his hand away.

"Hey! What is that, some kind of threat? You're going to have to do better. You're not even remotely scary." He widened his eyes and made twinkle fingers. "Oooooh, scary finger. I'm gonna poke you with it!"

"Um," said Ned, not for the first time and probably not for the last.

"Hasn't it been considerably more than a minute?" asked Chuck, worriedly.

"Oh no you _didn't_," said Emerson.

Ned flailed at Edmund, who regarded him with detached amusement. "He won't re-dead! I can't— what do I— I don't know what to do!"

"It's cold in here," said the vampire, and looked thoughtful. "I guess I should go check up on Esmerelda—" In a series of smooth movements he was up off the table, sheet wrapped around him, and ambling towards the door. The distraught Pie Maker followed after him tapping on his shoulder with absolutely no visible effect.

"I don't know what to _do_!" said Ned.

"Maybe some garlic," suggested Chuck, half-heartedly, in something of a panic. She looked to Emerson to see if he would at least give her a reassuring smile, but Emerson was already gone.

The Pie Maker and the lonely tourist stood and watched the reanimated vampire march from the room, trailing the sheet behind him; both of them equally at a loss, and neither of them quite willing to follow. One thing, however, they both knew, though only the Pie Maker had the guts to say it.

"This is not good," he said. "At all."

Twitch.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So NaNoWriMo starts in a few days, and I'm going to be busy, writing-wise. But I'm going to try to finish this off as well, if at all possible. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

**Part Two**

Emerson Cod had not been seated on the well-graffiti'ed bench down the street from the Coroner's office for very long before the Pie Maker, lonely tourist in tow, pulled up in front of him. He had, however, been sitting there long enough to discover someone's discarded bubblegum stuck to the bottom of his shiny black dress shoe. He was in the process of trying to pull it off when the windows of Ned's car rolled down and the Pie Maker and Chuck spoke simultaneously.

"You really _are_ a gum shoe, aren't you?" said one.

"Now _that's_ what I call a gum shoe," said the other. They stopped speaking and smiled at each other in mutual realization of their similarly-phrased attempts at humor, which would undoubtedly have set the audience at the Last Dance Bar and Grill roaring with appreciation. Emerson merely grimaced.

"I see what you did there," he said drily, and stood up. "Is there a dead guy in that office right now?"

"Probably," said the Pie Maker, wincing, "but not necessarily the one that we were just talking to. I say that not because I caused another death, but because it is after all— the coroner's office. And dead people is his business."

Emerson pointed at himself. "Dead people is _my_ business. And that guy you were talkin' to isn't dead. Why isn't he dead?"

"Can you get in the car and we can talk about this? I'm getting a crick in my neck."

Emerson heaved a sigh of long-suffering and self-denial, and joined the Pie Maker and Chuck in the car. "So what are we thinkin', here? You wake this guy up, you ask him some questions, bing goes his minute. So why didn't he go back to taking his dirt nap when you touched him again?"

"Technically speaking he wasn't taking a dirt nap, yet," put in Chuck from the backseat. "He was taking a stainless steel nap, with a sheet."

"And it wasn't much of a nap," said Ned, staring at the road as he pulled back onto it, fingers clenched on the steering wheel. "More of a lie down. I've read of magicians who can put themselves into comas, slow down their heartbeat and breathing till it appears that they're dead. It's a trick. A dirty, low-down trick. They do it to scam insurance companies."

"Enough of a lie down that his girlfriend called Emergency Services on him," snorted Emerson dismissively. "Edmund Hillary'd been dead for over 24 hours before we got to him. How long can you fake death without actually bein' dead?"

Ned, though he considered this question long and hard, did not have an answer for it.

"I don't have an answer for that," he said.

"Uh-huh," said Emerson, knowingly.

Chuck bounced in the backseat. "So we really are dealing with a real-life vampire? That's so neat! And seasonal."

"Don't get too excited," said Emerson darkly. "Just 'cause you recognize a kindred spirit, doesn't mean it's a friendly one. Vampires aren't exactly known for their even temperament and amiable nature."

Chuck did, in fact, feel that she was coming into contact with a kindred spirit. As someone who had been alive, then dead, and alive again, she did not know many who had gone through the same experience, and felt that she was in a rather exclusive club, all on her own. The only one who had not been twice-touched by the extraordinarily gifted Pie Maker was his dog, Digby; not someone that Chuck could have much of a conversation with. Although she had tried, Digby's responses had merely been a series of whines, which Chuck took to mean that the canine missed the comfort of the Pie Maker's embraces as she herself did. However, she was beginning to suspect that she might have been projecting.

"So where do we go, from here?" asked Ned, squinting at the road in front of him. "I need a direction."

"Turn left," said Emerson.

Ned obliged.

"We're goin' to see Edmund Hillary's long-time girlfriend," said Emerson, buckling his seatbelt and folding his arms. "See if she's got any light to shed on this case."

They drove on down the street. From the back, Chuck, with a tone of thoughtfulness, said, "What— happened when the vampire caught a cold?"

Ned tensed up momentarily, then relaxed as he realized she wasn't serious. Emerson just rolled his eyes.

"He went around a'coffin'," Chuck answered herself. The Pie Maker chuckled obligingly. That, he reasoned, was what boyfriends who couldn't touch their girlfriends were for: bad joke appreciation. No matter how awful the puns, he promised Chuck silently, their eyes locked in the rearview mirror, he would always laugh at her.

"Remind me not to go to Dead Girl for material," muttered Emerson.

"What?" said Ned semi-alertly.

"Never mind," muttered Emerson further. "Just you drive on, driver."

The driver drove on.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Coroner was on a mission, and the object was pie. Armed with the wad of bribery and freedom from Emerson Cod, he felt confident enough in his financial situation to expend a hard-won twenty on a fresh-baked dessert. He had a habit of trying a different bakery each time, being unable to settle on a favorite; his destination today was the Pie Hole, unwitting that the man who baked the pies was at present having vampire problems back at the morgue.

It was quiet this early afternoon, and the Coroner was one of only a few pie-eaters. Nevertheless he cast wary glances around him as he came through the door.

Olive Snook, possessed of a bubbly and optimistic nature that would not let her stay down long, had already gotten over her indignation at, once again, being left to man the counter while her boss, his untouchable girlfriend, and his colleague were out solving crimes; she took the Coroner's wariness for eagerness, and welcomed him to the Pie Hole.

"Welcome to the Pie Hole," she said, brightly. "Come on in, sit right down, open your mouth and surrender your wallet." She laughed the brittle, ingratiating laugh of someone attempting to sell something to someone else. The Coroner eyed her askance.

"Mmm-hmm," he said.

But he took a seat on one of the stools at the counter, and Olive planted her elbows and gave him a smile. "Want to hear our specials? Six Berry, Pumpkin Spice, Macaroon—"

"Macaroon?" said the Coroner.

Olive nodded enthusiastically. "It's like coconut cream, except without the cream."

"Where's the fun in that?" asked the Coroner. Olive stood quite still and looked at him, somewhat amazed.

"That's what I said! And Ned said sometimes you just don't _feel_ like cream, which I disagreed with heartily, because I have _never_ not felt like cream and I can't imagine a situation in which I would, but then Chuck backed him up so it was a done deal. Not that he ever listens to me anyway." The bubbly, optimistic nature subsided momentarily into gloom. Olive, as often as she would never not feel like cream, would never not feel the surge of love for the oblivious Pie Maker tugging at her heart. "Anyway it ended up being more like a cheesecake. So there goes that argument."

The Coroner placed both arms on the table, lacing his fingers together. "I'm looking for a pie to take to someone special."

"Oh yeah?" Olive, switching back into pie-slinging mode, leaned closer to him, as though sharing a secret. "Our pies make people special. Sometimes I swear they bring people back from the dead. Right from the brink of oblivion."

The Coroner knew a thing or two about the brink of oblivion. It was where people visited right before they came to his office. He leaned closer. "Tell me."

Olive blinked, somewhat taken aback. "Well, it's just a figure of speech."

The Coroner's excitement subsided. "Mm-hmm."

The pie-slinger faded slightly, and Olive set to match-making instead. "So who is this special someone who's so special they need a pie?"

"My momma."

"Oh." Olive held up an interrogatory finger. "Is she your momma in the traditional sense of you having sprung from her loins, or your momma in that odd and somewhat disturbing way that some people have of referring to their significant others as the gender-appropriate parent?"

If there was one thing the Coroner liked, it was attention to detail. He settled back in his seat and gazed at Olive pensively. Had he been anyone else, he would have beamed at her, but being who he was, the facial muscles that would be involved in beaming had long since atrophied beyond use.

"I like your style," he said, though nothing in his voice or expression correlated the statement.

"Oh," said Olive. "Well. Good."

* * *

Esmerelda Hannity, goth girlfriend of the late Edmund Hillary, though not the late Edmund Hillary that had anything to do with mountain climbing, was distraught. Her heavy mascara had run down her face as though trying to escape via her chin, creating streaks of blackness that echoed the depression of her soul. She answered the door sobbing, and let the Pie Maker and his colleagues in while crying. She led them to the living room, invited them to seat themselves, and inquired if they wanted anything to drink, all the while wiping tears away and emitting wails and whimpers. She retreated to the kitchen to bring them tea, and the three investigators exchanged glances.

"That poor woman!" hissed Chuck, keeping her voice down so as not to be overheard.

"She's gonna make herself dehydrated, she keeps carrying on like that," observed Emerson quietly.

"She's completely beside herself."

"I've always thought that was a weird expression," whispered Ned rapidly. "It conjures up the image of cloning, or of twins, in that you'd expect to see her actually standing beside herself when in fact all it means is that she's emotional, almost overly so." He paused to take in the looks that Chuck and Emerson were giving him. "But— I can see it's not an appropriate time for this sort of conversation, so I'll— save it."

"I'm going to go help her out," hissed Chuck, and stood just as Esmerelda Hannity came back into the room, still weeping. The upset girlfriend set a loaded tea tray down in front of Emerson, then collapsed onto an armchair in the corner. Chuck busied herself with comforting, sitting on the arm of the chair and putting her arms around the woman's shoulders. Emerson leaned forward, clasped his fingers together, and looked serious. Ned found a cookie.

"I'm sorry about this," said Esmerelda Hannity in between gasps and sighs, "but it all happened so suddenly, I can't seem to take it in."

"That's alright," said Chuck, comforting away, "we understand. Just let it out. Just let it all out."

"Or," said Emerson brightly, "you could keep some in, save it for later. We're here to ask you a few questions, see if you know anything about why your boyfriend Edmund died."

This, of course, made her cry harder, and Chuck glared at him over Esmerelda's bowed head. "Let me handle it," she mouthed at him.

"Fine!" Emerson mouthed back.

Ned mouthed something indistinguishable, as his mouth was full of cookie.

"What?" Chuck mouthed.

He finished chewing, swallowed, and said out loud, "We're just trying to help, Ms. Hannity. We want to find justice for Edmund."

"That's right," said Chuck, rubbing Esmerelda's arm. "Justice. Can you tell us anything that might be of use, Esmerelda? It's alright if I call you Esmerelda, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Esmerelda, wiping her eyes. "It's fine. I don't know how you expect to get justice. Edmund had a— had a—" She gave a little hiccup. "Had a heart attack."

"A heart attack?" repeated Chuck. She glanced up in consternation at Ned and Emerson. "Does that work with vampires?"

"He wasn't a vampire," said Esmerelda hotly. "He lied to me about that. He wouldn't have been able to die if he was a vampire."

"At least, not that way," put in Ned thoughtfully. "Though if someone had a silver stake, perhaps—" Esmerelda burst into fresh sobs and the Pie Maker stopped, looking chagrined and guilty. "Sorry."

"He always said he was part of an elite community," they managed to make out through the ex-girlfriend's tears.

"So he was online?" guessed Ned.

"The _vampire_ community! There were a few of them, here and there. They were always being targeted by monster hunters, so they had to be careful who they told about their true nature. I always thought he trusted me, I didn't even imagine that he— he—"

Chuck rubbed again at Esmerelda's arm, but the non-vampire's ex-girlfriend refused to be comforted. "You'd better go. This is going to last for a— for a whi— for a—while—"

The investigative colleagues extricated themselves from the situation and regrouped outside on the sidewalk. Ned shoved his hands in his pockets. He always seemed to think better with his hands in his pockets.

"So he wasn't a vampire."

"Or she thinks he wasn't a vampire," put in Chuck. "She thought he was, but then he died, so she assumed that he wasn't."

"But he is now?" Ned questioned, eyebrows peaked.

"Somebody decided to wake the undead guy up, so yes. He is now," rumbled Emerson.

"I refuse to take the blame for that one," said the Pie Maker immediately.

"How's that? It was your finger."

"Yes, I admit it was my finger, but I didn't _want_ to do it. I was coerced. Somebody wanted to find out about the romance of undead love." His eyes, to do him credit, hardly strayed to Chuck, who, in her turn, looked chagrined and guilty.

"You're right," she said mournfully. "It was my fault. I was curious. Curiosity woke the vampire. But in my own defense, that's hardly the issue now. The issue is, what do we do about it?"

"We're gonna have to find this guy, and fast," said Emerson. "Before he gets thirsty and makes himself a Bloody Mary, hold the tomato juice."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry this took me so long! The good news is, I finished my NaNo story with a few days to spare. Also in the world of original fiction, my big news is that my first novel is now available. You can check my bio page for links, if you like. **

**Part Three**

Breaking and entering was not, traditionally, part of the job description of the Pie Maker, and so he left this portion of the case to Emerson Cod, who happened to be very good at it. Why he was good at it was largely because of his experience as a detective; the illegal arts were often called for in this line of work, and he usually plied them with a minimum of fuss and mess. Today, however, he was fretting over his absolute failure as a stand-up comic, and as a result, was distracted.

Chuck watched as he attempted the dog-and-bunny for the fifth time, his thin metal dog slipping through his hands. The lock remained unpicked.

"Is everything alright, Emerson?"

Emerson grunted. "Let's just save those kinds of conversations for Pie Boy over there. He's the one in need of being psychoanalyzed."

Pie Boy exchanged a glance with Pie Girl. _Pyschoanalyzed?_ her glance said. _He's probably right_, said his, sheepishly.

"I only ask because you seem a little distracted," Chuck went on, watching as the flat steel bunny turned exactly three quarters of a millimeter in the wrong direction. Emerson growled low at the door. The door did not growl back, but its silence was eloquent. Chuck put out her hands.

"Can I try?"

Emerson dropped his head and heaved a long-suffering sigh. "One of these days," he started, getting up off his knees laboriously and handing the metal implements over to Chuck, "Dead Girl is gonna have to realize that she was_ not_ brought back so she could show us poor mortals how it's—" The door opened with a slight creak. "—done," finished Emerson, but his heart was not in it.

Chuck handed him the tools back and smiled cheerily at him.

"Since when do you know how to pick locks?" asked Ned, a slight smile appearing on his face; the smile that always crept into view when he learned something new about lonely tourist Charlotte Charles.

"Well, I took a course years ago, but I never really put it into use after I learned. It's like riding a bike— it all comes back." She twiddled her fingers in the air and smiled gleefully, like a child contemplating ice cream. Emerson rolled his eyes.

"Here's somethin' else you obviously never put into use. After you open a door, you go through it. Not just stand around waitin' for somebody to see you and wonder what you're doing at that dead guy's house with those shiny metal hairpins in your hands."

Ned put a hand out, carefully, to prevent Chuck from entering.

"Let me go first. It could be dangerous."

She couldn't help smiling at him. "That's very gallant of you."

"Right," said Ned, who was secretly wishing that he'd volunteered Emerson to go first. Emerson seemed to divine this thought, for he glowered at the uncertain Pie Maker.

"The guy," he said deliberately, "is dead. He's not gonna come flyin' out of his bedroom with a shotgun all full of righteous homeowner's rage."

"He's not really dead," Ned pointed out. "He could be lurking in the rafters or something."

"Vampires got better things to do then just hang around their house. Nobody got an active social life like a vampire. This house is silent as the grave. Go in it." Emerson Cod was rapidly running out of patience, a virtue he had never been particularly flush with to begin with. Ned's face assumed the slightly pained expression it always achieved when he was about to do something he didn't want to do, and he seemed to be holding his breath; but he stepped inside the dark and gloomy house, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. This, lonely tourist Charlotte Charles thought as she watched her beloved, was the way he would meet all unpleasantness: ready for the blow, but also steadfast and determined to move forward. Such a blend of pessimism and optimism was music to her mental ears; in what could be called his "pestimism" (or perhaps his "opssimism" were one so inclined) the reluctant hero was no less heroic.

It made her smile, and, stepping forward, that was how she greeted the unpleasantness on her own terms.

Emerson Cod, for his part, put a hand to his churning stomach and wished devoutly that it was W-O-R-K that spelled R-E-L-I-E-F, for that was all he had at present and running out to the nearest corner mart for some antacids was not an option.

The interior of the abandoned house was pleasant, if dark. Emerson's flashlight sparked first off a mirror, which he ventured forward to investigate. A life-size photo of the Edmund Hillary's face was pasted onto the silvery surface, at the approximate height of his head if the vampire stood in front of the mirror. Emerson sniffed, recalling that vampires couldn't be seen in mirrors; of course, that didn't mean they had no need of checking to see that their tie was straight or their hat was facing forward.

Ned switched his flashlight on to play it around the walls; the light caught on stunning portraits of castles surrounded by flat green terrain.

"Think those are his ancestral homes?" guessed Chuck. "His family may have ruled for centuries, may still be ruling, the same old dusty lords and ladies looking out over land that is changing so much faster than they do—" She clasped her hands together in front of her heart. _Lasting forever_, was the unspoken phrase she was thinking. _The undead do not die_.

"I'm not all that up on vampire lore," said Ned, clearing his throat, "but would that mean that as the parents had children they would have to— vampirize them?"

"By biting them on the neck," said Chuck, and as the Piemaker swung the light around towards her she widened her eyes and made a face of theatrical horror. Ned gulped.

"Why would they do that? To someone they loved?"

"Because they loved them," said Chuck. She stepped forward and Ned played the light to accompany her; she had found a small picture on a table, and from it the face of Edmund Hillary and Esmerelda Hannity peered, both wreathed in content smiles. Chuck lifted the small frame and studied it intently. "Because they wanted their loved ones to be with them forever. And death—" She shook her head. "Death gets in the way of that. Even though you can love someone after they've died, they can't love you back."

Ned made a small strangled sound as he attempted to speak and clear his throat at the same time. It made Chuck smile and it made Emerson roll his eyes.

"Actions speak louder than words," he said, gesturing towards the door in front of them. "You all are whisperin', I want to shout. Lets go investigate the supposed scene of the alleged crime."

"Which would be?" asked Ned. Emerson gave him his_ I can't believe you can walk without trippin' over your shoelaces _look.

"In the bedroom," he said, delicately. "Or coffin-room, whatever. Findings show that most accidents happen at home."

"Maybe he should have moved," suggested Ned. Emerson modified the face to _I can't believe evolutionists think you evolved from monkeys. That's a major step in the wrong direction for a monkey._

"Don't look at me like that," said Ned, somewhat distressed.

Emerson opened his mouth without being quite sure what was going to come out, but before he could say anything and surprise them all, a sound spiraled up through the closed basement door and silenced the three of them. They all assumed slightly crouched positions, arms away from their bodies and raised, that made them look uniformly foolish. The crouched positions were to indicate their readiness for action regardless of what happened, and were entirely misleading as none of them felt ready at all.

"Someone's in the house!" whispered Chuck.

"I _know_," whispered Emerson scathingly.

Ned swiftly clapped a hand over his eye; but not swiftly enough. The twitching acted on the other two like a harbinger of doom, and together they all turned towards the basement door. Under it a light shone, and there was the sound of footsteps.

The someone was coming up.

* * *

Olive Snook, when in the grasp of a bout of story-telling, was a hard story-teller to silence. On and on she would go, as long as the audience in front of her was still breathing and had not fallen face-first into their plate of pie in severe cardiac distress, whereupon she would of course call the emergency services and, a considerate and kind woman at heart, wait to finish her story until the audience was convalescing in the hospital.

At present her audience had only a small risk of heart attack, and Olive was sailing blithely through the conversational waters, regaling the Coroner with the story of a soldier she once knew who dated an amputee.

"So then he said, 'Your arm's right where you left it!'" She laughed heartily. The Coroner did not crack a smile, but she had already learned to read his truncated facial expressions and she sensed that the grimness of his scowl was to a lesser degree than previously, indicating pleased agreement with whatever she said. "He ended up taking it into battle with him. Stuck it on the front of his plane. Used to freak the enemy out so bad they'd steer clear of him just because." She chuckled herself into a standstill, sighed, and wiped at one eye. "Oh, anyway. Tell me about yourself."

"I'm a coroner," said the Coroner. Olive clasped her hands and leaned on the counter, nodding in fascination.

"That so?"

"It is," said the Coroner with gravity. One could not call him a liar; at least, not truthfully.

"So you're in charge of the dead people?"

"That would be God," said the Coroner, with even more gravity. Olive nodded slower, to indicate reverence and a reluctance to be flippant at such a juncture in the conversation.

"As much as I hate to be flippant at such a juncture in our conversation," she said, "does he get a desk in your office? Or his name on the door, or something? I mean, a morgue's gotta be Dead People City Central. What exactly does your job entail?"

"Entrails," said the Coroner.

"That's what I meant," said Olive, before she realized that the Coroner had not been correcting her word usage, but answering her question. "Oh. I just—" She waved a hand between them. "I just got that. Do you figure out how people died?"

"I figure out what they died of," said the Coroner.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"No."

She waited a moment, but there was nothing forthcoming. "Care to elaborate on that?"

"It's up to the police and the detectives to figure out the hows and the whys," said the Coroner, but his voice was beginning to show signs of strain from the unaccustomed length of his sentences. "All I can answer is the whats."

"Oh," said Olive, and she nodded. In her mind she was running through the directions the conversation could now take; she could jump the track entirely and tell him about a friend she'd had growing up who could stick a spoon up his nose, or about the day she was hired on here at the Pie Hole, or about how to win a horse race when your horse only has three legs and you've just put on five pounds on account of that Thanksgiving turkey (the secret: cheat). But instead she decided to go with the flow— something she only did when she felt like it. "My boss is a detective," she said. "Or he thinks he is."

"I thought he baked pies." The Coroner was stoic.

"He does," Olive assured him. "He bakes pies and fights crime. He's like a superhero except without all the spandex." The thought of Ned in spandex and a cape caused her to falter momentarily and look off into the distance. "If he was a superhero, he'd be— Pie Boy. Or— Pie in the Sky. Or— Captain Pastry."

"Mmm-hmm," said the Coroner.

"He hooked up a few years ago with this private dick, Emerson Cod. I say that in the strictly professional sense."

The Coroner looked up from his pie.

"Cod?" he said. "Like the fish?"

"Or like Cape Cod," said Olive. "Or like— no, that's all I can think of." She looked at the Coroner brightly. "Why, do you know him?"

"Hmmm," said the Coroner.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry this has taken so long. In between employment drama and trying to get ready for a writing contest, my head's been sort of... useless, really.**

**Part Four**

Inside the house of the undead, the stairs were creaking fitfully. Whoever it was coming up them gave a slight cough. The door knob was fumbled with, briefly.

It suddenly flung itself open as if possessed, and a yawning black hole presented itself. Flashlights shone back and forth wildly. Four voices vented themselves in various sounds of surprise.

"Gah!"

"Hey!" came from the doorway.

"Ahh!"

"Eeeeeee!" There was a brief pause after this one, and the sound of someone being comforted.

"Ned, it's alright, Ned. Look, it's—" Chuck gestured emphatically. "— just a guy!"

It was, in fact, just a guy. A young man stood in the doorway, illuminated now by the beams of three flashlights. He stared wild-eyed at them through his thick glasses, pushing them anxiously up his nose with one shaking finger.

"Jeeeeez! You guys scared me!"

"It's mutual," said Ned, who now had his hands over his face. Chuck took Emerson's free hand and used it to pat him till Emerson angrily removed himself from her grasp.

"What are you doin' here?"

"I, uh, I might ask you the same question!"

"That you might," Emerson allowed, showing his teeth in what was probably not a smile, "but I asked you first."

"Repair man," the young man said, his voice breaking slightly and quavering. He shrank back from Emerson, molding himself to the door, and faced their scrutiny without bravery. He was in fact dressed in the uniform of some sort of repairman, though it was unclear which. His one-piece was dark blue with a red horizontal stripe, which lent the impression that he'd just won first place in some repairman beauty pageant; or, at least, runner-up. The lighter blue patch over his left breast pocket proclaimed him Ray.

"What are you repairin'?" Emerson kept up his conversational pursuit as though he were treeing a easy raccoon. Ray the repairman blinked compulsively.

"Er— the lighting."

"It's pitch black down there," the Pie Maker pointed out, looking over the protective fence his fingers were forming.

"Well, I'm not done yet."

Emerson, very deliberately, smiled at the little repairman. "Now how 'bout you tell us the truth of what you're doin' here, and we won't arrest you as a possible suspect in the murder of Edmund Hillary?"

"Murder?" squeaked Ray.

"Murder!" repeated Emerson in a mocking high falsetto.

"The guy's dead?" said Ray. His face twitched. Chuck folded her arms; the twitching was something of an epidemic, it seemed, one that everyone appeared to be catching. However, she considered further, young Ray looked as though he twitched to keep another emotion from emerging— as though he were trying to keep himself from smiling.

Emerson Cod and the Pie Maker had apparently reached the same conclusion.

"Are you _happy_ about this?" said Ned, dropping his hands altogether and placing them on his hips to stare at the repairman in a markedly accusatory manner.

"I, uh, no, it's just—" There was a definite jolly glimmer coming from the repairman, however. He folded his arms, tucking the flashlight into his elbow. "Dead, huh? Fancy that."

"I don't fancy it," rumbled Emerson. "And somethin' tells me you're doin' more than just repairs. Let's get on down to the basement and check on your work." He stepped forward and nudged Ray by sheer force of presence towards the top of the basement stairs. Ned and Chuck followed him, exchanging glances of worry and excitement; worry from Ned, for whom the thrill of detecting had long since worn off; excitement from Chuck, for whom the thrill of simply being alive would never pall.

Emerson walked Ray down the stairs, a hand on his shoulder. The young repairman did a lot sniffing in the darkness and Emerson clenched his fingers.

"What's the matter with you? Are you cryin'?"

"Allergies," explained Ray. "Basements are dusty, they get me all—" He sneezed. "Well, you can see for yourself."

"I can't see anything," came the petulant voice of the Piemaker from behind them. "Why's it so dark in here?"

"It's a basement," said Emerson. "No windows."

"I thought he said he was fixing the lights."

"Well, obviously, he was lyin'."

"Can we get him to, then? It's so dark in here I can't even see my own hand in front of my—" The lights came on and chased away the darkness. Ned squinted, cross-eyed, at his hand. "Oh. There it is."

"Light switches," said Chuck, moving back towards them. "Don't leave home without 'em."

They clicked off their flashlights and had a glance around the room. The basement suite was lushly appointed in traditional bachelor style: a bed in the corner, a giant TV against the wall, a foozball table in the middle of the floor, and a complete lack of chairs.

Ray shoved Emerson's hand off his shoulder and moved a few steps away. "Besides. You guys didn't tell me what you were doing here, either. How do I know you're not just common, ordinary thieves?"

"We are private investigators," said Emerson, drawing himself up to his full height. "We are investigatin'."

"Privately?" questioned Ray.

"On the down low," acknowledged Emerson.

"Then maybe you don't want the lights on."

"Whatchou talkin' about? Can't do no investigatin' in the dark."

Ned coughed and muttered something that sounded like, "Sentence structure." Emerson waved at him to shut up.

"Then why didn't you turn the lights on upstairs?" Ray pointed out, with admirable quickness for a repairman. He leaned back against a wall and folded his arms. "You guys don't seem very legit, to me."

"Nobody asked you," said Emerson, a bit angrily. "All you need to know is I'm the one givin' orders around here. Now what was it you were 'repairing'?" He caressed the final word with almost loving sarcasm, as though it were an underperforming step child. Ned rolled his eyes.

Ray the repairman considered his options for a moment, looking from one to the other. Then he sighed, dropped his arms, and led them to the coffin-shaped bed in the corner that, on further investigation, turned out to just be a coffin. He paused for a moment with his hands tense on the lid, then lifted it. It went up smoothly, without a squeak or a groan, but they all shuddered regardless.

"Always gives me the creeps, the way they sleep," said Ray quietly. Emerson jabbed at his shoulder with one finger.

"It's explanation time," he pronounced. "Just who are you, anyway?"

The repairman only looked at him; and it was enigmatic a look as anyone with thick black plastic glasses has ever managed. The private detective stared back, but enigmatic expressions had never been his forte, and he was soon forced to back down and acknowledge the young repairman to be the master.

He pointed at him with one finger.

"You," he said deliberately, "got somethin' wrong with you."

"Maybe if you weren't so rude," suggested Chuck, pushing him aside. "Pointing at people all the time, poking them, telling them there's something wrong with them—"

"There is," insisted Emerson. "This kid's got somethin' freaky goin' on, and I don't mean freaky in a good way. This kid's— oh, look who I'm talkin' to." He rolled his eyes and turned away from the lonely tourist. Emerson felt once again the sense of disappointment that comes from being the only normal person on an entire planet full of lunatics, and he fretted inwardly about being haunted by the moon. He wished he had time for a few calming rows, but his needles were in the car and there was a vampire on the loose. He didn't have time for anything.

"We're trying to clear this problem up," Chuck was saying to the repairman. "And if you could only help us out a little, I'm sure everything would be much more clear."

"Listen to Dead Girl," Emerson muttered. "Talkin' to Freaky MacFreakerson like he's still watchin' Sesame Street."

"She's right, you know," Ned told him quietly. His arms were folded, his shoulders hunched. He watched the alive-again love of his life reason with a repairman in a vampire's bedroom and could not bring himself to feel good about this situation. "You really are rude."

"In vampire parlance?" began Emerson. "Bite me."

"Well," said the repairman to Chuck, who had concluded her plea for assistance with clasped hands and a winsome look, "since you asked nicely." He bent and reached for the electrical outlet on the wall next to the head of the coffin. There was a small white box plugged into it, which Ray removed and handed to Chuck. "This. This is what I was repairing."

She squinted at it, turned it side to side. Emerson reached for it and she pulled it away from him, lifting her eyebrows to make her point. "Maybe next time you'll be more polite?"

"Here—" She dropped it into Ned's outstretched palm. He frowned down at it. "What is it? It looks like a night light, except—"

"It's a daydark," explained Ray. "Vampires use them. Doesn't really do anything for them except make them a little more comfortable."

"Uh-huh." Ned turned it over to squint at the manufacturer's information. 100% recycled plastic with a 15 watt black glass bulb. He was invited to direct questions or comments to Van Helsing DayDarks Inc., complete with 800 number and website. "What kind of vampire buys something made by someone named Van Helsing?"

"A very unobservant one," said Ray. "Statistics show that vampires never read labels. That 800 number has never been called."

"You've got statistics on this?" asked Ned, brow furrowing as though he were going to plant a crop. Ray shrugged.

"Part of my job to know what's going on in the vampire world," he said. "All in a day's work."

The three intrepid Pie Holers stared at him for a moment. "Who _are_ you?" asked Chuck at last, with very little care for how rude she was sounding.

"Ray Van Helsing." The repairman stuck out a hand for them to shake, which no one took him up on. "Vampire hunter."

* * *

"So then when Emerson showed up, and this whole partnership thing started, we were saved. And let me tell you, we'd been seriously floundering up till then. We were a sinking ship. Even the rats had left. Not that we've ever actually had rats," Olive hastened to add. "Because we're really a very clean establishment."

The Coroner leaned to one side to glance around the counter into the kitchen. A fluffy yellow tail thumped on the floor; the canine caboose it was attached to and, presumably, the remainder of the dog were obscured from view around the corner. The Coroner sat up straight again.

"Mmmmhmm."

"Oh, that's Digby. He's very clean." Olive grinned. "Plus, he helps clean up any scraps that get dropped when we're baking, so he's helpful too." She planted her elbows on the counter. "That— didn't come out quite as sanitary-sounding as I'd hoped."

The Coroner had now been sitting in the Pie Hole for a number of hours. Were his ears of the detachable persuasion, they would long ago have been talked off. Olive, notwithstanding the ebb and flow of increasingly frustrated customers, had never had an audience like this one and was not keen on giving up. The Coroner, for his part, found himself reminded strongly of the first few years of his long-ago marriage, and stayed put out of a keen sense of nostalgic inertia. Now, their conversation had drifted around to their mutual acquaintances the Pie Maker and Emerson Cod, Private Detective. Both Olive and the Coroner found themselves puzzling over the multitude of visits Ned and Emerson paid to the morgue.

"I wonder what they do there, anyway?" mused Olive. "Emerson I could see checking up on a body now and then, he's got a suspicious mind. But Ned? I mean, it's not like he's trained for that kind of thing. What does he want to go stare at corpses for?"

"And that girl," murmured the Coroner.

"Yeah! Why do they always take Chuck with them? Why can't they take me? I mean, notwithstanding the Pie Hole, I know someone's gotta keep it open, but— why can't we trade off? What if I want to go look at corpses. Dang it!" She slapped a hand down on the counter. "Now I want to know what they do there."

"So do I," murmured the Coroner.

Olive Snook adored the idea of being a conspirator. Looking at the dour man seated across from her, a glow lit her up from within and her eyes began to shine. This, she realized, could be it. Finally, she might have met the man who would be on her side, who would help her in her constant struggle against the Three Investigative Musketeers. The man who would share secrets with her, and make the three of_ them_ feel left out for once. The man who would help her discover the riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in Morse code that was the Pie Maker's emotional state.

She leaned in close.

"Want to find out together?"

The Coroner only stared at her for a moment. She deflated quickly.

"Oh," she said. "—I guess that's not what you meant."

* * *

Emerson Cod cleared his throat.

"Moving on," he said. "What's with the nightlight?"

"Daydark," Ray Van Helsing corrected him. "It's called a daydark. It's the complete opposite of a nightlight."

"Whatever," said Emerson, unoriginally. He was quickly losing his patience, not something he'd had abundant supplies of in the first place. "Why's a family of vampire hunters helpin' the vampire's to sleep easy?"

"Well, that's the thing. We're not." Ray whipped a screwdriver from his pocket and opened the daydark, displaying its innards to the others. "See that small vial there?"

There was, indeed, a small slim glass vial filled with some whitish liquid nestled in the midst of the wires. Emerson sniffed. "What is it?"

"And why does it smell like an Italian restaurant?" queried Chuck.

"Garlic!" said the vampire hunter/repairman triumphantly. "Essence of garlic."

"I thought that was just supposed to keep vampires away," objected the lonely tourist reasonably. "Why is it in his daydark?"

"Ah, see, that's where the legend has it wrong. It keeps vampires away for a reason. Prolonged exposure to garlic gives you one very sick vampire. Too long, and—" He waved a hand. "Pshh. One dead bat."

Chuck stared at him in horror. "You really mean it? You go around killing them? Just because they're, you know— undead? Alive again?"

The Pie Maker wished devoutly that he could comfort lonely tourist Charlotte Charles. In her eyes he could see that she identified heavily with the hunted vampires and wished that even these unsaveable souls could yet retain their right to life, again. She reveled in the gift of life that he had given her, and was not willing to see it taken away from others. It was a large part of why he loved her as he did, yet he still did not like to see her in such anguish. He opened his mouth without being quite sure of what he should say. Undoubtedly it must be something wise, loving, comforting; it must be his arms around her, in sentence form.

He took a breath.

"Never mind the ethical complications," broke in Emerson. "That's not what we're here about. Now we know how the vampire ended up on the slab. That's good. A little knowledge never hurt anybody. We've still got to figure out where he is now."

"You know what I don't get?" said Ray, tilting his head to one side and grabbing at his glasses as they started to slide off. "How the bat got up again. I mean, he was dead, right?"

The three investigators stared at him.

"Never you mind," said Emerson darkly. "Like I said, that's beside the point. What we need to know is what's going on in Edmund Hillary's mind. He's gotta be hidin' out somewhere. But where? Who'd harbor a vampire?"

Ned, distracted, found himself staring at Edmund Hillary's place of rest. "That's an awfully big coffin, isn't it?" he said. They all turned to look at it. "Like it could be— big enough for two."

"Hmm," rumbled Emerson.

"And—" Ned strode forwards and lifted the top cover gingerly. "Floral sheets!"

He waited; Emerson grumbled and rolled his eyes. "Okay, Sherlock. What's the deal with the flowery sheets?"

The Pie Maker replaced the cover with a look of triumph. "Only a woman buys floral sheets."

"Maybe his momma donated 'em to him when he moved out."

"I don't think so. Mothers generally give their children old sheets, so the patterns will almost always be from the sixties and seventies." Ray moved forward to confer with the Pie Maker. "I agree with him. These sheets lack the general artistic miasma that everyone suffered in that time period. I'd say they're not more than—" He sniffed. "Two months out of package."

"And a stuffed bat!" Ned pounced on it and held it up. "What kind of self-respecting male vampire buys a stuffed bat to put on his bed?"

"So, someone else bought the bat and the sheets—" began Chuck.

"Someone else been sharin' the coffin bed," said Emerson, and shuddered violently. "This case just keeps gettin' creepier and creepier."

"But what woman would be able to bring herself to sleep in a coffin in a basement in the daytime?" pointed out Ned. "I'll tell you."

"A vampire," preempted Emerson. The Pie Maker's face crumpled into disappointment, but this was a common expression for him to be wearing and the detective took no note. "There's not one vampire on the loose— there's two."

"Esmerelda Hannity was lying to us!" said Chuck.

Ned folded his arms and sank his shoulders downwards. Deep within him the urge to twitch was approaching, and he knew he was powerless to stop it. Old tics died hard. Perhaps he should see a therapist, or at the very least a massage therapist, although he did not like to be touched so on the other hand—

Ray Van Helsing patted him on the shoulder, sporting an enormous grin.

"You did good!" he said. "Good job, buddy!" To top it off, he gave him an eager thumbs up. Ned looked at him for a moment, then relaxed.

"Well— thanks, I guess."

"Time to go hunt down the bats," said Ray Van Helsing determinedly, and together, they followed Emerson and Chuck up the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The home of Esmerelda Hannity, possible vampire, looked as serene and kempt as it had the last time the little band of detectives visited it. Now, of course, they marched on with more determination: Emerson with head lowered and brow furrowed, Chuck carrying on an animated conversation with Ray Van Helsing, and the Pie Maker stalking along behind them, hands in his pockets. They marched past the steel-railed fence, through the pointed-steel gate, and onto the neat little porch to the door.

"But you don't seem to understand," Chuck was saying to the vampire hunter, hands waving around in the air. "They were alive, once, and now they're alive again. How is it any different? Why don't they have the same rights?"

"_You_ don't seem to understand," said Ray, gripping tightly on his flashlight. His shoelaces were coming undone and he stepped carefully. "They were dead, and now they're not. Dead things shouldn't just come back to life again. It's not natural."

"Maybe it's being dead that's not natural," argued Chuck. She looked at the home that housed the vampire's girlfriend, and for a moment her eyes reflected the helplessness that the Pie Maker felt, knowing he was unable to comfort the woman he loved. "Don't you see, that this is a second chance for him? A second chance at life, at love?"

"It's all fun and games till someone gets bit on the neck," said Ray Van Helsing, with determination, and joined Emerson, who had been waiting with infinite impatience on the front step. Together, they rang the bell.

Hanging back a step or two, Chuck confided in Ned.

"He doesn't understand."

"How could he?" Ned asked gently, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug. "How many people have been in that situation?"

"Other than us? Not many, I guess."

Ned nodded, casting his eyes down to the pavement. "So— I guess— we can't give everyone the same second chance that you have. It just— doesn't work that way. But that doesn't mean that you don't take advantage of the chance you've been given."

Lonely tourist Charlotte Charles stared at the man she loved; his hunched shoulders, his sheepish gaze.

"I will never stop being glad of what you've done for me," she said, clearly if quietly, still mindful of the interloper in their midst. "I promise you, I will try to live every day as though it's a gift, a gift that you've wrapped up in sunshine and rainbows and clear clean air and with ice cream on top, and left for me just outside my door so I find it when I step out."

"The ice cream'll get all melty," said Ned, smiling a little.

"I'll eat it anyway," promised Chuck.

"You guys have _got_ to be kidding me," rumbled Emerson. Ray, standing at his side, cast confused glances between Chuck and the Pie Maker.

"Is it somebody's birthday?" he said.

In response, Emerson hammered on the door.

Silence still from within the house, and then only a few whispers from outside it. Emerson wheeled around again and directed his ire to the quietly happy couple a few steps behind him.

"I'm sorry," he said, "is this murder investigation gettin' in the way of y'all's lovey-dovey time?"

"Vampire investigation," said Ray helpfully. Emerson stared him coolly down. "But, y'know, never mind."

"Maybe she's not here," suggested Ned. "Maybe when her undead boyfriend came back, they decided to run off together. Knowing that there was a vampire hunter on their trail—"

"I've been thinking on that," said Ray. "You said he died, right? Died again, I mean."

"We really need a better term for that," Ned opined. "Undead, redead, dead again, alive again, I mean, it gets all confusing and redundant."

"Uncle Gabriel is working on a grammar," Ray told him, "but it's incomplete as yet. So you'll just have to wait. Anyway, what I was saying, was— he was dead, then alive again, then dead again—"

"You see what I mean?" interrupted Ned, now wary of where this was going.

"_I_ see what you mean," said Chuck, likewise.

"—and now he's alive again, again," Ray went on, ignoring him this time. "So— what happened? Was there a mix-up somewhere? How'd he get woken up again if the day-dark put him in a permanent bat nap?"

"That's irrelevant," snapped Emerson. "Point right now is, how we gonna find ol' Batman and Batgirl if they're hidin' from us? You know of any caves 'round this region?"

"No, but—" Ray frowned, and looked up. "Doesn't this house have an attic?"

There was, indeed, an attic on top of the second story, which was discovered in due course, after Emerson broke and entered.

("But it's so _messy_," complained Chuck. "And leaves glass everywhere. Can't you just let me tricky-dick the lock again? I promise not to upstage you. Much."

But Emerson had had it with Dead Girl, and said so, carelessly, before he smashed the window pane.)

Up to the attic they quietly went, trooping up the stairs with as little noise as possible. The silent house produced a groan or two, reminiscent of Halloween drafts, and Chuck twined her fingers together as she could not hold the Pie Maker's arm. The Pie Maker, likewise, pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, wishing for the warmth of the lonely tourist's hand. Instead he felt the cold hard certainty of a twitch in the onset, like a cobweb at his temple. No, he realized then, there really was a cobweb at his temple.

"Ew," said Chuck, brushing at her hair with both hands. Emerson shushed her, ironically, by bellowing,

"_Quiet!_"

His nerves were somewhat worn, at this point. From somewhere up ahead there was a flutter, like that of wings. Ray Van Helsing pointed dramatically to the door at the top of the stairs. Emerson Cod pointed dramatically at Ray.

"You do this for a livin'," he hissed. "You're the expert. You go first."

The young vampire hunter swallowed and crept past Emerson's bulk, up the last two steps to the top. The door creaked only a little as it swung open to reveal the dusty, cobwebbed, spider-infested attic.

The couple hung from the ceiling, upside down, their arms about each other. Though at first glance it may have appeared that they had returned again to their true dead state, that they had bought the farm and shuffled off this mortal coil, that they had perhaps kicked the bucket and begun to push up the daisies, they were in fact only sleeping. This fact was shortly born out when some sixth sense alerted them to the presence of the investigators, and they awoke with identical yells of surprise.

The investigators, no less surprised by the suddenness of this, reacted in kind.

"Gah!"

"Hey!"

"Ahh!"

"Eeeeeeee!"

The vampires were on their feet in a trice, turning at bay; Esmerelda clutched the arm of her beloved close.

"Leave us alone!" she cried. "We didn't do anything to you!"

Ray Van Helsing stepped forward. "There's been a rash of vampires all over the city in the past month."

"Really?" said Ned, diverted by this information. "A vampire rash?"

Ray, now on a mission, ignored him. "All kinds of undead sightings, bats at the windows and in the belfry, virgins waking up with fang marks! You can't just go around biting people on the neck! It's unhygienic, for one thing—"

"But it's our nature," said Edmund Hillary, not in the least bit related to the Edmund Hillary of Mount Everest-climbing fame. He frowned a bit, looking perplexed. "That's the way things are for us. It just comes naturally."

"Nothing natural about it," proclaimed Ray; from his pocket he removed a small replacement vial of essence of garlic, designed for use in the day dark. "You're unnatural beings. You're supposed to be dead, both of you. Now, hold still for a minute, won't you?"

He took aim.

But lonely tourist Charlotte Charles had a warm heart of golden empathy for these creatures of the night; for the duration of the case she had wrestled with feelings of sadness, melancholy, the unfairness of it all. Why should she get a second chance with life, with love, when these two were denied? She too was an unnatural creature; she too was supposed to be dead. But here she was, alive, alive again.

She rushed forward to stand between the hunter and the hunted.

"Chuck!" Ned started forward, but she waved him back.

"It's not fair," she told Ray. "I understand where you're coming from— and maybe once upon a time I felt the same way. Maybe vampires are unnatural. But think of what I said before, think of the second chance you could give them! If they would just—"

Her sentence was cut off as the vampire's arm snaked around her neck, hauling her back against him. Esmerelda ran for the window and jumped out; they did not hear her fall. Edmund Hillary paused to consider his options.

"I don't want to hurt anybody," he said.

"Chuck!" said Ned.

"Ned?" said Chuck.

"Huh?" said Ray, who was not quick on the uptake.

"Hillary!" thundered Emerson. As incensed as the private detective frequently was with Dead Girl and her idiosyncracies, he was secretly rather fond of her, and did not take kindly to her being used as a human shield, undead or otherwise. He advanced on the stuttering vampire, who backed away and headed for the corner. "Listen here, Hillary. You got two options: one, you let the girl go now and I bust a cap in your butt. Two, you let the girl go a little later and I bust two caps in your butt. Which one you partial to? I like a combination of one and two, myself."

"Chuck!" said Ned.

"One more option," said the vampire, who was obviously nervous. His lily-white hand trembled on Chuck's throat. "I hold you at bay with my captive, take the stairs to the roof, and escape that way."

"How, exactly?" Emerson demanded.

Edmund Hillary shrugged. "Well, everyone always told me that vampires could fly. I always wanted an excuse to find out for sure."

"Chuck!" said Ned.

"Ned," said the lonely tourist, her heart peering out of her eyes at the distraught Pie Maker, "don't do anything silly. I know I said I love it when you're silly, but you really have to pick your times and your places."

"Chuck, I—"

"What stairs?" said Emerson.

Edmund Hillary reached with his free hand to the string hanging from a trapdoor in the ceiling. "These stairs," he said, and they tumbled down in front of him. He stared at them. "This rope ladder, I mean."

"Wait!" bellowed Ned, clutching at his hair with both hands. "Leave Chuck! Take me instead!"

Edmund Hillary considered him for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Maybe that magic finger of yours malfunctioned for a while, earlier, but that doesn't mean it won't kick back in. I like being undead, thank you very much. Here, you go first," he directed Chuck, and urged her up the ladder.

The three left behind stood and watched him as he made his way out of sight, then Emerson shook his head and sighed.

"There has got to be another way," he said.

"I know!" said Ned, frantically, still pulling at his hair. "Got to be!"

"No, I mean," said Emerson, "there's no _way_ you gettin' _me_ to climb a rope ladder."


End file.
